The Black Monster
The Black Monster is a legendary figure and character-defining villain in the 1999 video game, The Legend of Dragoon. Introduced as a near-mythical demon that has roamed Endiness for 10,000 years, the Black Monster's sole purpose is to eliminate the newborn Moon Child when it reincarnates once every 108 years; along the way, it also kills anyone who has been in close proximity to the child, often destroying entire villages in its attempts to annihilate the young messiah's supporters. Dart, the protagonist of the game, has emerged as one of the few survivors of the Black Monster's most recent atrocity - a massacre that ended with the destruction of Neet village, the assassination of the infant Princess Louvia, and the death of Dart's parents 18 years prior to the events of the game. Determined to avenge his mother and father, he has sworn to hunt down and kill the Black Monster, but despite a five-year search spanning the length and breadth of Endiness, he has failed to find any trace of it by the start of the game. However, as The Legend Of Dragon continues, frequent references of the Moon Child and the Divine Moon Objects seem to imply that the monster is somehow involved in the ongoing conspiracy. However, during the climax of disc three, it's eventually revealed that the Black Monster is none other than Dart's mentor and fellow Dragoon Rose. And far from being a straightforward antichrist figure, her purpose is far more complicated than the legends purport. History The Dragon Campaign Rose was born over 11,000 years prior to the events of the game, and like most of the human race of this era, she spent much of her life as a slave to the Wingly Empire; as the 107th race given life by the Divine Tree of Soa, the Winglies believed that their impressive magical powers made them naturally superior to all other forms of life on the planet, and used this belief as justification for the wholesale enslavement of all other races in Endiness. Her life as a slave remains an enigma that Rose is unwilling to elaborate on even once her secrets are revealed; however, what is known is that the cruelty of the empire gradually drove the enslaved peoples to rebel in large numbers, most of them (including Rose) rallying to the banner of the human revolutionary known only as Emperor Diaz of Gloriano. But to defeat the magic of the Winglies, the humans needed a military advantage of some kind, and eventually found it in the form of dragons: by means of a slain dragon's spirit - manifested as a tiny pendant-sized sphere - the humans found that certain individuals could transform themselves into Dragoons, great warriors empowered with the supernatural gifts of flight, enchanted armor, mystical weaponry and impressive magical powers. These legendary knights could also tame and command live dragons, particularly in the form of the vassal dragons born of those killed to acquire new spirits; as such, though only seven compatible warriors could be found, they became Emperor Diaz's lieutenants and humanity's great trump card against the Winglies, and it wasn't long before the war between the two races became known as the Dragon Campaign. Rose was one of these seven warriors, having acquired a spirit of her own under the guidance of Zieg, the Fire Dragoon. From then on known as the Darkness Dragoon and accompanied in battle by her vassal dragon Michael, Rose became one of humanity's greatest champions over the course of the war. She also formed lasting friendships with her fellow dragon knights, particularly with her mentor Zieg; eventually, the relationship between them blossomed into a romance, and the two of them planned to marry once the war was over. However, even with the combined might of Dragons and Dragoons, even with aid from Winglies sympathetic to humanity's cause, the war was still a long and bloody conflict: though Dragoon magic and human ingenuity sent the flying cities of the Wingly empire plummeting to the ground, imperial reprisals resulted in the deaths of countless innocents, and the giant Virages employed by the Winglies exacted a vicious death toll on the dragon population. As the two sides grew more desperate, the clash between human and Wingly magic grew more and more savage, and Rose was forced to witness the deaths of many of her friends and loved ones as the Dragon Campaign reached its climax. Eventually, the human forces closed in on the Wingly capital city of Kadessa. There, while Rose and her friends slew the Virage army and destroyed the city's defenses, Zieg killed the Wingly Emperor Melbu Frahma in single combat. However, this final victory came at a terrible price: with his dying breath, Melbu Frahma cursed Zieg to eternal petrification, and Rose could only watch in horror as the man she loved was slowly reduced to an inanimate statue; she never even had a chance to recover his body, the ongoing destruction of Kadessa sweeping her away before she could reach him. Once the fighting had died down and the remaining Winglies had surrendered, it was discovered that all the other Dragoons had died over the course of the battle - including Rose's best friend, the White-Silver Dragoon Shirley. Thus, the Dragon Campaign ended with humanity victorious, the Wingly empire dissolved, and Rose as the last surviving Dragoon. Birth of the Black Monster At some point following the end of the war, Rose was contacted by Charle Frahma, one of the Winglies who had sided with humanity over the course of the Dragon Campaign - and Melbu Frahma's sister. Over the course of their meeting, Charle revealed that her brother had discovered the existence of a 108th fruit of the Divine Tree, a creature they called the Virage Embryo: known as the God of Destruction, this divine entity was formed solely for the purpose of destroying Endiness and creating a new and better world to replace it. Realizing the threat it represented, Melbu had magically separated the god's body and soul to ensure that its cataclysmic birth could never end his reign, and eventually transported the vacant flesh into space, where it became popularly known as the Moon That Never Sets. Unfortunately, Melbu had been too greedy to abandon the wellspring of potential power that the God of Destruction offered: imprisoning the god's spirit within a crystal sphere, he used it as a source of limitless magic, boosting his powers to levels unseen even by the Winglies. Charle had attempted to limit the power that her brother could draw from the Virage Embryo by means of five magical signets, but Melbu had simply created a number of artifacts that could destroy the signets - though he never had a chance to use these Divine Moon Objects, as they were later called. In the final battle at Kadessa, the crystal had shattered - leaving the soul of the Virage Embryo free to be reborn as a human known as the Moon Child: with the divine power and knowledge it possessed, the Moon Child would eventually seek to complete its original mission by reclaiming its original body. Worse still, even without its original body, the Moon Child possessed the ability to bewitch the minds of anyone in close range, encouraging them to perceive it as a messiah - and thereby guaranteeing an army of followers. With only the Winglies' magical signets keeping the Moon That Never Sets in the sky and the Divine Moon Objects now in the possession of humanity, someone had to stop the Virage Embryo before it could begin its apocalyptic crusade. So, while Charle and her fellow Winglies did their best to maintain the signets protecting the god's body, Rose set herself the mission of ending the threat of the god's soul, seeking out the Moon Child and killing it. However, this was only a temporary solution: even once the Moon Child died, the Virage Embryo's soul was unharmed and free to be reborn once again - though the process would take at least 108 years to complete. So, Charle gave Rose a magical choker that granted the wearer immortality, ensuring that Rose would be alive to seek out the Moon Child when it finally manifested once again. Once every 108 years, Rose waited for the telltale signs of the Virage Embryo's reincarnation: when the Moon That Never Sets glowed red, she followed the trail of rumors and portents to the newly-incarnated Moon Child, and without exception, eliminated it. As time went on, circumstances drove her to become less and less merciful: killing the Moon Child did not free those enraptured by its influence, and in order to prevent them from preparing the way for the next incarnation, Rose was forced to kill them - usually destroying their village in the process; and because the Moon Children only grew more powerful as they matured, Rose had to kill them when they were still young - often in infancy. However, despite her best efforts, she could not prevent the Moon Child's legend from spreading by word of mouth, and the truth of the Virage Embryo was soon lost as religions began adopting the Moon Child as an official messiah. Because of her methods, Rose became one of the most hated figures in Endiness, and was soon demonized as an antichrist-like figure known only as the Black Monster - an impression only worsened by the veil of fire and smoke she used to disguise herself during the murders. Scholars and priests throughout the world came to believe that the Black Monster was a demonic rebel against the divine fate imposed by Soa, an embodiment of the neverending chaos that was consuming the world, and that only the "Holy Bliss" promised by the Moon Child could cleanse him from the world (for very few imagined the Black Monster was female). However, even with the belief system of an entire civilization having declared her the enemy, the Black Monster could not be stopped: her powers made short work of the villages and towns where the Moon Child manifested, and her disguise ensured that nobody would ever realize who the newly-christened monster truly was. Between murders, Rose lived simply and unassumingly, wandering aimlessly across Endiness without a cause or agenda, never settling down for too long in case anyone happened to notice that she was not aging. For a time, she had Michael with her to assuage her loneliness, but time and battle took its toll on her faithful vassal dragon; eventually, he turned feral, blindly lashing out at innocents and refusing to obey Rose's commands to stop, eventually forcing her to kill Michael before he could become a greater danger. Now with her last link to her old life severed, Rose became increasingly numb to human emotion as the millennia dragged by and the massacres continued: immortality, loneliness, and the guilt of murdering so many innocents left her almost incapable of feeling anything - to the point that she simply forgot how to smile, laugh or even experience happiness of any kind. But regardless how much suffering she endured and inflicted, she refused to abandon her mission: Zieg and her fellow Dragoons had sacrificed their lives to free the world from slavery, and she would not besmirch their memory by allowing the world to become a slave to divinely-ordained fate. The Tragedy of Princess Louvia 11,000 years went by: Winglies, Dragons, Dragoons and even the Dragon Campaign itself passed into legend; nobody remembered the names of the 7 original Dragoons, and the nature of the divine power that Melbu Frahma had usurped had been forgotten. Only the Moon Child and the Black Monster remained, locked in eternal combat. 18 years prior to the events of the game, Rose discovered that the Moon Child was currently staying in Neet, a small village in the northern kingdom of Mille Seseau. However, far from being born to humble peasants, the Virage Embryo's current incarnation was none other than Princess Louvia, heir to the throne of Mille Seseau. Because of her status, the Moon Child was already heavily guarded even before her powers began enchanting the locals, with almost an entire company of fully-armored knights on the lookout for any potential threats to the royal family. However, even the best knights in the land were no match for Rose's powers. Unknown to Rose, however, Zieg was alive and well in Neet: with Melbu Frahma's curse having finally lost its potency over the millennia, he had returned to normal and reentered society, even marrying and becoming a father - all with no idea that woman he'd once loved had survived the past 11,000 years as well. In her Black Monster disguise, Rose descended on Neet in a firestorm, setting the town ablaze and killing hundreds if not thousands of people. However, Princess Louvia appeared to have unexpectedly eluded her; for a time, she stalked the inferno in search of survivors who might be able to reveal the Moon Child's current location. After killing her way through the few remaining knights left in the village - all of whom refused to talk - she eventually learned from one terrified witness that Louvia and her entourage had escaped aboard a ship called the Saint Louvia; pausing only to kill the witness and leave her daughter to burn to death, she departed. Meanwhile, Zieg had been getting his wife and child to safety; unaware that his village was actually under threat from his ex-lover, he told both of them to stay put before heading back into the blazing wreckage to try and stop the Black Monster. Zieg's wife, Claire, followed him back - leaving their son Dart alone in the forest. The attempt at stopping the Black Monster ended in disaster: unknown to Zieg, Melbu Frahma's soul had managed to find purchase in his dragoon spirit on the day of their last battle, and the moment he tried to use it, the long-dead Wingly seized control of his body and took him as far away from Neet as possible. Meanwhile, despite having trained at the legendary Rouge school of martial arts, Claire was no match for the Black Monster, and Rose slew her easily as she left Neet for the coast. Now in pursuit of the fleeing ship, Rose overtook the royal galleon and slaughtered everyone on board, not stopping until Princess Louvia was dead. Believing that her mission was complete for the time being, she left the ship floating aimlessly in Ilisa Bay - where it was soon reclaimed by the ghosts of the men she'd slaughtered. However, Rose had made a critical error: Princess Louvia was not the Moon Child. In reality, the Virage Embryo had been reborn as Louvia's twin sister, who'd been separated from the rest of the royal entourage during the frantic attempt to escape Neet. Cut off from anyone who knew of her royal lineage, the baby was eventually adopted and resettled in Seles, a small town in the south of Serdio: named Shana, the girl was much beloved by the residents of the village - including Dart, who'd also resettled there (but not before retrieving his father's Dragoon spirit from the ruins of Neet and developing a lasting grudge towards the Black Monster). Unaware of her mistake, Rose returned to wandering Endiness, believing that the Moon Child was not due to reappear for another century. Unexpected Friendship 18 years later, the game begins with Rose wandering into the southernmost regions of Endiness, eventually finding herself in Serdio. There, she happens to witness both the Sandoran attack on Seles and the sudden appearance of the Green-Tusked Dragon Feyrbrand in the neighboring forest; when the dragon attacks Dart, it's Rose who saves him, keeping him in hiding until Feyrbrand loses interest and wanders off. However, as Dart leaves to rescue Shana from the Sandoran forces, Rose's Dragoon spirit resonates - detecting a potential Dragoon and his spirit. Intrigued, Rose secretly follows him. Though she is still unaware that Zieg survived and fathered a child, she does notice Dart's curious resemblance to the man she once loved, and only grows more interested in him as a result. After spending the first half of the first disc out of the spotlight, she finally catches up with her quarry and his allies while they are stationed at the fortified town of Hoax. By this time, Dart and Shana are working for King Albert of Basil alongside Lavitz Slambert, and have been charged with holding off the Sandoran forces by any means necessary; unfortunately, they quickly find themselves outnumbered and outmatched by the army that attacks Hoax. Fortunately, Rose arrives just in time to rescue Dart from the Sandoran champion Kongol: deflecting the killing blow and awakening Dart's spirit, she guides him through his first transformation into a Dragoon, granting him the power to drive off the invaders. Once Dart has recovered from his ordeal, Rose gradually settles into the role of mentor to the young Dragoon, teaching him how to harness his newfound powers and detailing the history of the Dragoon - totally unaware that she's actually tutoring the son of her own mentor. Naturally, she is careful to avoid mentioning her role in the Dragon Campaign, or her secret identity as the Black Monster. With her student still determined to stop the Sandoran forces and the dragon they have acquired, Rose decides to join him on his quest, partly out of having nothing better to do but mostly because the young warrior and his companions remind her of the friends she lost in the Dragon Campaign. Though Lavitz and Shana are little suspicious of the mysterious warrior, they gradually grow to appreciate her - and to Rose's confusion, attempt to steer her away from killing defenseless enemies, as is the case in their second battle with Kongol. Throughout the first disc, Rose continues to serve as a mentor to Dart, providing explanations of ancient magic to the group as they progress - a necessary role, as the legacy of the Dragon Campaign proves more integral to the ongoing conspiracy than first appearances suggest: over the course of the first disc alone, the party encounter a Virage, slay Feyrbrand, do battle with a Dragoon in the service of Imperial Sandora, meet with the ghost of Shirley, learn that a Wingly named Lloyd is manipulating Sandora and Basil in order to acquire a Divine Moon Object from King Albert, and finally discover that Emperor Doel is actually a Dragoon as well. By the end of the first disc, every member of the party is now a Dragoon, and Rose feels more at home than she has in centuries. In the second disc, while pursuing Lloyd and his accomplices across Tiberoa, Rose is forced to confront the victims of her past crimes when the party's ship unexpectedly collides with the Saint Louvia, now a ghost ship haunted by the specters of its murdered crew. Over the course of their time aboard, Rose ends up unwittingly re-enacting the murder of the Princess's defenders as she fends off the vengeful ghosts of the royal knights. Eventually, Shana is able to bring the defenders to their final rest and end the haunting, causing the ghost ship to sink back into the ocean. Swept overboard in the collapse of the ship, Rose and Dart wash up on the neighboring shore; while tending to an unconscious Dart, Rose flashes back to the events of the Dragon Campaign and once again reflects on Dart's remarkable similarity to the man she loved, but despite her loneliness, she acknowledges that she cannot love him in the same way she once loved Zieg. Eventually, the two rejoin the party and continue their pursuit of Lloyd into Mille Seseau for the third disc of the game. However, Rose finds herself returning to the scenes of her past misdeeds and failures once more, first when she temporarily leaves the group to pay her respects to the memorial at Neet, then when she and the rest of the group journeys to the ruins of Kadessa to retrieve the Dragon Block Staff and stop the Divine Dragon from laying waste to the land. Despite her best efforts to keep her identity hidden and her longing for Zieg at bay, Rose almost blows her cover after she and Dart are blasted off a cliff by Lloyd: dazed and possibly concussed by the fall, she briefly mistakes Dart for Zieg, almost confessing everything to him before finally lapsing back into unconsciousness. Though the party eventually succeeds in tracking down Lloyd and defeating him in combat, Shana is unexpectedly kidnapped by Lloyd's master, a man calling himself Emperor Diaz. At Dart's behest, the Wingly fanatic leads them all the way into the ancient capital of Gloriano, Velweb, where - to the shock of both Dart and Rose - "Diaz" is revealed to be none other than Zieg. Still secretly possessed by Melbu Frahma, Zieg reveals his plan to reunite the body and soul of the Virage embryo and bring about the end of the world; for good measure, he also reveals Shana's true nature as the Moon Child and Rose's true identity as the Black Monster. In a fit of panic and desperation, Rose makes a desperate attempt to kill Shana right in front of Dart, but is easily deflected by Zieg, who then teleports away with the Moon Child in tow. Moon And Fate Now revealed as the Black Monster, Rose's relationship with the rest of the group is left in question throughout the earliest chapters of disc four. With no other option, they are forced to journey out of Gloriano and seek out Charle Frahma at the hidden oasis of Ulara; much of their journey through the desert is conducted in complete silence until Dart takes Rose aside to resolve their dispute in a formal duel. Over the course of this largely-unseen battle, Dart gives vent to his rage and grief over the destruction of Neet and the death of his mother, and despite the centuries of combat experience that his opponent possesses, he manages to finally best her. Defeated, Rose decides that Dart no longer needs her help and encourages him to kill her; however, Dart refuses, claiming that the Black Monster is already dead and that Rose is all that remains. Nonetheless, while he acknowledges the necessity of killing the Moon Child, Dart cannot entirely accept the option of killing Shana, resolving to find another way. Charle is kind enough to provide one in the form of the signets: if they can protect the remaining Moon Signets, they might be able to stop Zieg from completing his mission. However, though their quest leads them across three of the greatest Wingly cities in history, forcing Rose to confront the ghosts of the past once more (quite literally when they visit Death City Mayfil), all three surviving Moon Signets are destroyed. With no other choice, Rose and the others make a desperate journey to the Moon That Never Sets as it descends to meet the Divine Tree - in the hopes that they might be able to sabotage the Virage Embryo from within. Once inside, the Moon That Never Sets warps and changes to reflect the psyche of its invaders, and each member of the party finds themselves confronting an element of the past they deeply regret: with Zieg already on the loose and at least two survivors of Neet having forgiven her for her crimes, Rose has to battle her long-dead vassal dragon once again and slay Michael before he can kill her friends. Finally, the party makes its way to the very heart of the Moon, where they battle Zieg to a standstill and defeat him; forced out of his host body by mortal wounds, Melbu Frahma's spirit finally reveals himself and his true plan to become the God of Destruction. Pushing Shana aside and taking her place, he becomes the soul animating the body of the Virage Embryo. However, Dart and Rose refuse to give up despite the apparent impossibility of the challenge ahead of them, and attack Melbu Frahma head-on. After a long and grueling final battle, Rose and her fellow Dragoons finally slay the God of Destruction before he can unleash Soa's fate upon the world. As the Moon That Never Sets collapses around them, Dart and the others hastily evacuate the area, but Rose decides to remain behind with Zieg, having lived far too long for her own liking and believing that she no longer belongs in Endiness. Despite Dart's best efforts to get them to leave, the Virage Embryo's explosive death throes force him to escape without them, leaving Rose and Zieg to vanish into the blinding light of the erupting Moon, finally united in death. Personality On the face of things, Rose is quiet, reserved and immensely stoic: she emotes little during the first disc, responding only with blunt pragmatism in the face of the challenges the game presents the party with, and shows no mercy in combat - to the point that Shana and Dart have to talk her out of killing the defenseless Kongol. Enigmatic and mysterious from the moment of her introduction onward, she is reluctant to share any details of her past at the best of times - a trait that becomes increasingly suspicious to her fellow party members as the game continues. As the Black Monster, she is seen as nothing more than a rapacious nightmare, a malevolent force of chaos and destruction devoted solely to ensuring that Endiness never knows peace. Though nowhere near as monstrous as the legends suggest, Rose has adapted some of this perception into her Black Monster persona: in her attack on Neet, she presents herself as heartless killer, incapable of mercy and almost mechanical in her pursuit of the Moon Child. When duty calls, she will kill anyone who threatens the safety of the world, from the infant Moon Child to the innocent villagers who have fallen under its influence. However, under her unyielding exterior and monstrous persona, Rose is a deeply traumatized human being, broken by the events of the Dragon Campaign and left almost incapable of expressing emotion after 11,000 years of loneliness and bloodshed. In private, she admits that she has all but forgotten what it feels like to smile and can't remember the last time she laughed. Seemingly unable to take joy in anything, she exists in a state of permanent watchfulness in preparation for the next fight, and can often be found keeping an eye on the horizon while other party members socialize or play. As her time with the group goes on, Rose gradually begins to open up to her fellow party members, most specifically Dart. Eventually, this connection to others gives her the strength to confront her demons and her past: whereas in Disc 2 she only boarded the Saint Louvia because she had no other choice, Disc 3 sees her deliberately pay a visit to Neet - where she goes so far as to befriend Luanna, the daughter of one of her past victims. At Shirley's encouragement, she is also able to return to Velweb during Disc 4 to confront the ghosts of her long-dead comrades among the first Dragoons, finally putting their souls to rest and finding some measure of closure in the process. The events of the climax continue Rose's ongoing attempts to find closure, eventually meeting with success following the final death of Melbu Frahma and the Virage Embryo's body, allowing her to die with her mission completed and a clear conscience at long last. Gallery Rose Dragoon.jpg|Rose as the Darkness Dragoon RoseLooksOnInHorror.jpg|Rose looks on in horror as Zieg falls in battle TooLateToSaveZieg.jpg|Rose tries and fails to reach Zieg as he petrifies BlackMonsterNeetInterrogation.jpg|The Black Monster laying waste to Neet StainedGlassWindowMonster.jpg|A stained-glass depiction of the Black Monster BoschBlackMonsterDepiction.jpg|A wildly-inaccurate depiction of the Black Monster BlackMonsterMoonChildWallMural.jpg|A mural depicting the neverending battle between the Black Monster and the Moon Child RoseOutOfDragoonForm.jpg|Rose, shortly after rescuing Dart from Kongol Category:Anti-Villain Category:Fantasy Villains Category:Video Game Villains Category:Tragic Category:Necessary Evil Category:Extremists Category:Fallen Heroes Category:Friend of a Hero Category:Enigmatic Category:Magic Category:Destroyers Category:Fighters Category:Elderly Category:Provoker Category:Redeemed Category:Suicidal Category:Destroyer of Innocence